


The Haunting of Malfoy Manor

by lightgetsin



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/M, Futurefic, Ghosts, Haunting, Magic, Post War, Prostitution, Recovery, sex positivity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-22
Updated: 2005-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:44:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightgetsin/pseuds/lightgetsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harry attends an exorcism, Parvati exercises her powers for good, and Snape makes a very cranky Yoda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Haunting of Malfoy Manor

**Author's Note:**

> ontent notes: vague references to offscreen sexual violence

"Am I disturbing you?" asked Lupin, rapping on the doorframe and leaning into the office.

"No," said Harry, straightening up and smiling, simultaneously pleased and wary. It was always nice to see Lupin under any circumstance, but if he and Sirius just wanted Harry to dinner this week they'd have owled.

"Do you think you could knock off a bit early and come take a look at something with me? I'd like your insight."

"Yeah," said Harry, glancing down at his desk. He'd been doing his taxes, actually, just waiting for five o'clock. The convoluted tangle of math and logic and bureaucratic footwork created by his conversion this year of some of his holdings into Muggle currency for the securities market was oddly engrossing at the end of a long, dull day.

Lupin leaned in the doorway, chatting amiably about this and that bit of news. Harry gathered his cloak, eyed his briefcase, shrugged, and left it. He glanced right as they exited together - the Minister's door was still closed, the floo call with the French dragging on.

"Where to?" Harry asked as they made their way down the lift and through the lobby, past the restored fountain complete with more politically acceptable statues, even to Hermione's sensibilities.

"To see a classmate of yours, as it happens," said Lupin, holding the door open for him. "Miss Parvati Patil."

Harry came to a sudden stop. "Parvati? But I heard she --"

"She has," said Lupin. "Quite the unsuspected entrepreneur, Miss Patil."

"Huh," said Harry, beginning to move again. "What're we going to see, then?" He was relieved that his voice only squeaked a little.

Lupin cast him a sideways glance. "I'd rather not say, if you don't mind. I'd like you to draw your own conclusions."

Harry shrugged his agreement. He could make a guess now anyway - Lupin wouldn't bring him for anything simple or easily handled. Or, he thought a little cynically, non-educational.

"The front garden," said Lupin, as they reached the apparation point. He paused and touched Harry's shoulder. "Is this all right?"

"Yes," said Harry shortly, and went first.

He appeared just where he had intended, outside the mouth of the hedge maze, standing on the brick walk with his back to the house. The days were getting longer as winter bowed to spring, and Harry found himself standing in the deep shadow of the building, cast by the sinking sun. He turned on his heel, tilting his head back. Malfoy Manor looked just the same - gothic and stern, the stone fa ade a maze of carvings and ledges and balconies. Except, he saw, eyes tracking to the left, for the south wing. He'd never seen the ruins, having been unconscious at the time, but if half the _Prophet_'s awed enthusiasm was to be believed they'd been quite spectacular. That whole part of the building was gone now, a well-tended lawn in its place and the gaping hole in the main block of the Manor bricked over.

"She's expecting us," said Lupin, popping into existence at his shoulder. "Shall we?"

Their knock was answered by a hulking man who towered at least eight inches over Harry's head. "Madam is expecting you," he said when Lupin introduced himself. "This way, please."

He led them straight back to the drawing room, where Voldemort had liked to hold court. Harry had seen it only the once and it didn't seem to have changed; it was very much Narcissa Malfoy's, all cool elegance. Which, Harry supposed, could be put to many a purpose.

Parvati rose from the window seat as they entered. She was dressed in blouse and slacks, looking almost indistinguishable from any Ministry witch on Muggle Friday. "Mr. Lupin," she said, coming forward with hand extended. "Thank you very much for coming. And Harry, this is a pleasant surprise." Her hand was firm and cool in his. They were exactly of a height, Harry saw; she tall for a girl - a woman, he amended quickly - and he on the short end for a man.

"I thought Harry might be of some assistance," said Lupin adroitly.

"Of course," murmured Parvati. She glanced at the hovering servant. "Tobias, please fetch some tea for our guests." She beckoned them to a conversational grouping of sofas with a sweep of the hand. Harry had the sense, watching her settle, ankles crossed, of leashed theatricality, a purposeful deliberation of gesture and voice that could be turned to almost any end.

"Well then," said Lupin, setting his worn briefcase at his feet. "Your note was most unexpected. And interesting. Tell me how you think I can help you."

Parvati considered a moment, visibly organizing her thoughts. "I bought the house nine months ago," she began. "You may have heard. The Ministry had seized it, of course, and then sold it when they were through digging. Quite a mess they left, too."

Harry winced internally - that hadn't all been the Ministry. It made sense, though -- he'd had neither the inclination nor the strength to closely scrutinize the news for the first few months after the war. With Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy dead, and Draco as good as, the estate must have been in shambles.

"Do you know what exactly the Ministry did?" asked Lupin.

"More or less. I did demand an inspection by a third-party hex and curse expert before I bought it, too. He swore it was as clean as it was going to get, after the Aurors and MLE's were through." She grimaced prettily. "As it turned out, I might as well have spent my money on a plumbing inspector and saved myself the grief."

"Kingsley Shacklebolt was in charge of the investigation of the property," said Lupin, speaking half to Harry. "And he doesn't cut corners."

Parvati shrugged. "Well, they certainly missed _something_."

The tea arrived, and there passed a homey interval of pouring and stirring and sipping. Parvati poured as if she were, well, in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor.

"Tell me about the disturbances," Lupin prompted, after a polite spate of inconsequential chatter.

She set her cup down, but kept her hands clasped around it. "There have been a number of things," she said. "Though some I see only in retrospect. Fresh fruit left overnight in the kitchen was rotten the next morning. A painting of water nymphs on the first landing suddenly started spouting water out of the canvas at passers-by, and then stopped after an hour. I know," she added, as Lupin opened his mouth. "That's a very difficult trick to manage. I checked." She began ticking points off on her fingers. "A mirror in the blue suite shattered with no warning. One of my girls saw it happen - she swore it just exploded, like someone punched it from the inside. Two weeks ago, Tobias went to fetch a bottle of wine from the cellar, and he found it full of bubotuber pus."

"Hmm," murmured Lupin. "It sounds as if you've been experiencing some disruptive bursts of mischievous or simply chaotic magic." He paused, eyeing her. "Though I must point out that there is another possibility."

"No one in the house is doing this," she said firmly. "I'm certain. There's been too wide a variety of times and locations and people present."

Lupin nodded. "As long as you're aware," he said. "Tell me, have you spoken to anyone at the Ministry? The Committee on Common Magical Household Pests, for example?"

She laughed dryly. "The Ministry is generally uninterested in any trouble that might come to me and mine," she said, shaking her head. "Unless it's the sort they're bringing. The MLE's have been through here twice in the last nine months, looking for anything illegal."

"I imagine they couldn't find a thing," said Lupin.

"Not a one," said Parvati serenely. "And so I came to you. I heard that you sometimes offer your skills and expertise in troubles of a magical nature. I can pay you, of course."

"Oh, that won't be necessary," said Lupin absently. He hardly needed the money now, Harry was sure, but he also suspected Lupin hadn't been in the habit of demanding payment from witches and wizards in need even when he'd been one himself. "This is puzzling," Lupin continued. "There are quite an astonishing number of things that could explain this sort of activity. A particularly shy poltergeist, though such a thing seems a contradiction in terms. The improperly neutralized remains of an old and powerful spell. I assume you've reinforced the wards yourself?"

"Oh yes. Though it wasn't entirely necessary. The Ministry left some of the external magical defenses intact - the Muggle diversions, that sort of thing." She cocked her head to one side. "It was my understanding that much of the magic about a place faded without the presence of a managing wizard, but that doesn't seem to have been the case."

"A keystone, yes," said Lupin. "This is true. And in this house the keystone would be a Malfoy, of which there are none left." He smiled gently at her. "But I think you also know that very old and very strong spells can take on lives of their own. The Hogwarts defenses held for nearly a year, with Dumbledore gone and no Headmaster in residence."

"Yes," said Parvati, who had probably learned to cast wards during that very time, through the long siege. Now that Harry thought about it, he could remember her walking the perimeter of the grounds in the student patrols, throwing everything they had behind the millennia-old battlements of the castle, real and magical.

"Well," said Lupin. "This will require some thought."

"You'll help, then?" she asked, a tremble of uncertainty touching her smooth face for the first time.

"Of course," said Lupin, smiling crisply. "Why ever not."

"Of course," murmured Parvati, and flickered a glance at Harry. "Do tell me how I can be of assistance, and when you'd like to visit again." She paused, and a slow smile curved her mouth. "Would either of you care to stay? We'll have a full house tonight."

"No, thank you," said Lupin equably. "I'm expected home for dinner."

"Harry?"

"Er no," said Harry hastily.

"The offer remains open." She rose, extending her hand to each of them again. "Thank you for your time. It's lovely to see both of you again." She smiled into Harry's eyes. "You look good."

"Thanks. So do you. Erm," he hesitated. "Can I ask you something?"

A flicker of wariness touched her face, then vanished. "Yes?"

"Why here? The house, I mean?"

She withdrew her hand from his and laughed. "Honestly? It came cheap. The Ministry seized the entire estate, and found itself with a handful of not much. They were pleased to sell cheap and get it all over with." She paused minutely. "Rather makes you wonder about Draco's hospital bills, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," said Harry, and stepped back.

"Also," said Parvati, smiling with teeth, "I found the idea deeply amusing."

Tobias appeared to show them out, leaving them on the front walk with a bow.

"Wow," muttered Harry, as the door shut behind them.

"Quite," said Lupin, eyes twinkling. "So?" he added, taking Harry's arm and ushering him down the walk.

"I don't know," said Harry, shrugging a little uncomfortably. "This isn't easy, you know."

Lupin cast him a piercing look, and only then did Harry realize the double-meaning of his words. "It takes practice," was all Lupin said. "Did you get anything, though?"

"I . . . maybe," said Harry, who was unwilling to say that he'd been closed up as tight as a startled clam in there. "I need to think about it. It was . . . strange."

"Well," said Lupin, as they reached the hedge maze. "Why don't you think about it over dinner. Come on."

*

The wireless was on in the kitchen, and Sirius put his head around the door the moment they came in. "Remus - oh, hullo, Harry, even better. Look, I'm cooking dinner, but the mashed potatoes came out _crunchy_."

"Oh for-" muttered Lupin, though when Harry glanced back at him, he seemed to be smiling.

"I can't imagine what happened," said Sirius, peering thoughtfully into the pot on the stove as they hurried in to do damage control.

"I shudder to think," said Lupin, pushing him out of the way. "Here, Harry, banish this, will you?"

"How was your day then, dear?" asked Sirius, relinquishing the stove with a shrug.

"Fine," said Lupin absently. "Looked into an enchanted chimney stack in Shropshire, the one I told you about. Returned my library books. Took Harry to Miss Patil's cathouse."

"Oi!" yelped Sirius, outraged. "You took my godson _where_?"

"Miss Patil is having some . . . magical difficulties," said Lupin, casting a mildly reproachful look over his shoulder as he apparently decided fried potatoes were going to be the order of the day. "Harry is helping me. I had no untoward intentions, I assure you."

"It's not that," said Sirius, scowling. "You just ruined his birthday present."

Harry, leaning in the doorway, cleared his throat and looked away.

"The wonder," said Lupin, appearing to talk to the air, "is that though Mr. Black has never produced anything short of a culinary disaster, he continues to try."

"Oh, a little practice will straighten out the kinks," said Sirius, with the cheerful unconcern of a person to whom most skills came without difficulty. "Say, Moony, can we have onions in, too? And those little peppers?"

"Go away," said Remus equably. "Entertain your godson while I keep us from starving."

Remus had dinner on the table within twenty minutes. There was silence as they all dug in. Lupin had the metabolism of, well, a werewolf, and Sirius attacked every meal set before him with the single-minded focus of a man who didn't anticipate seeing another for a long time. Harry didn't know if this was an aftereffect of Azkaban or of resurrection, and didn't particularly want to ask. Food made Sirius happy, though come to think of it, most things made Sirius happy these days.

"So," said Remus, setting down his fork. "Tell me more precisely - what did you feel?"

"I'm not sure," said Harry, sipping his pumpkin juice in thought. The truth was, he'd hardly dared crack the lid of his 'internal magical eye,' as Hermione had called it. Not there. But Lupin had asked, and so he had tried. "It was . . ." he trailed off, squinting as he searched for a way to describe the feeling. "Just out the corner of my eye, like . . ." he trailed off again. He never had words for this type of perception, for the things that came to him when he tuned something in his head like a wireless, reached through the buzz of static and found the eerie, wild music that was magic. His eyes fell shut and he did it almost without thought, surprised at the sudden ease of the trick. Time was, only a few months ago, trying this left him sweating and shaken, head pounding. But now it was as easy as turning the knob of a door and walking through, and suddenly it was as if the room, the whole house, all of London moved without moving, turning ninety degrees to let him see inside and behind and through. He could hear the low, watchful hum of Lupin's carefully applied wards, see them as a delicate, springy latticework, tensile and strong like a spider's web. The entire flat was a wash of magic - carelessly splashed spells for cleaning, for fixing, for summoning, for light, for dark, for sleep, for relief of pain. Lupin, across the table, throbbed with the slow, subdued beating of a great inhuman heart, and to his right Sirius was a marvel of magic, every vein and corpuscle lit by the fervor of restored life.

Harry closed his eyes to them, to the distracting dazzle. Malfoy Manor had been like this, drawing room saturated with the magic of everyday wizarding life. But beneath that, so entrenched it had been nearly invisible, there had been something very old and very clever, something which, Harry could almost believe had looked back at him. "There's someone there," he said, hearing his own voice from far away and knowing the words were inadequate.

"What?" said Lupin sharply.

Harry blinked. The world snapped back into place and he found himself looking into their faces, flesh and bone again.

"What?" he repeated stupidly.

"You just said 'someone,'" said Lupin. "Not 'something.'"

Harry shook his head. "Did I?"

"So the place is haunted," said Sirius, looking between them. "Can't say I'm surprised. You remember the stories, don't you Moony?"

"Which do you mean?" asked Lupin, frowning.

"Oh, you know," said Sirius. "It was all over Hogwarts. Perditus Malfoy - Lucius's grandfather," he added, for Harry's benefit, "used to summon up his great great great whatever to torment him. The poor bugger had besmirched the Malfoy name - I think maybe he shagged blokes or cured the Black Death or some such - and so the Malfoy ancestors knocked him off. But they wanted to keep him around a bit, for entertainment. He's probably still lurking about, rattling the crockery for jollies."

"That's ridiculous," said Lupin. "One cannot create a haunting. Ghosts, when they are made, are entirely a manifestation of the dead wizard's will."

Sirius shrugged. "I reckon if anyone were to figure out a way, it'd be the Malfoys," he said.

"Hmm," said Lupin noncommittally. "Any thoughts, Harry?"

"No," said Harry slowly. "Not really." Ghosts, thanks to Professor Binns, seemed an entirely dull prospect. "What do you think we should do?"

"Hmm," said Lupin again. "Something that the Ministry chaps wouldn't have tried, I think. Harry my lad, have you ever been to an exorcism? Just covering all my options," he added as Sirius made a triumphant noise.

"No," said Harry, startled. It had never occurred to him that magic for such a thing existed - he couldn't imagine using it on the friendly hauntings of his acquaintance, like Nearly Headless Nick.

"Right then," said Lupin briskly. "That's where we'll start. I'll need to do some reading first - it's a rather arcane undertaking, as I recall. Shall I owl you?"

"Sure," said Harry, curiosity piqued despite himself. If Lupin wanted him to do some chanting and wand waving, he really couldn't see clear to object.

He left soon after. Sirius was humming over the dishes, wand in one hand and scrub brush in the other. His hands were soapy, but Harry ducked beneath his arm and let his godfather hook an elbow around his neck. "You want to take in a game this weekend?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"Sure," said Harry. "The Harpies are playing, I think."

"Grand. I'll check the papers."

Lupin walked him to the door, standing quietly as Harry retrieved his cloak. "Have you been doing the exercises I suggested?" he asked, his quiet voice nearly drowned out by kitchen clatter.

"Some," said Harry, back turned.

There was a small silence, and he fiddled needlessly with his cloak. Of all his small circle of informal teachers and guides, Lupin was the only one who seemed to have no need to chide him over his progress. Perhaps, Harry thought a little cynically, because he was the only one to also know what it was to fear something inside himself. None of which meant that his unspoken disappointment didn't weigh heaviest of all.

"I will tonight," said Harry, abruptly.

"As you like," said Lupin, and squeezed his shoulder briefly before Harry apparated away.

Ron was lying on the sofa when he got home, big feet sticking out at one end and red head at the other.

"Post for you," he called as Harry came in.

The post basket was on the dining room table, perched precariously atop an impressive pyramid of accumulated junk.

"I thought you were going to clean up today," said Harry, poking gingerly through the bills and adverts for his letters. One from Ginny and one from - damn. Damn, damn, and bloody fucking hell to boot.

"Forgot," said Ron sleepily. "Sorry."

"Have you seen my diary?" Harry asked, unrolling Ginny's note.

_Harry - Sorry, but I can't come with you to the Minister's birthday ball. How about lunch next week? -G_

"No," said Ron, sitting up. "Try summoning it."

Harry made a quick visual survey of the room, and not seeing his appointment book anywhere, pulled out his wand. "Accio diary!"

There was a subterranean rumble, as of a volcano about to explode. The dining room table seemed to heave and swell. The basket of post popped off the top of the pile like a cork, and as if this had been the first pebble of an avalanche roughly two tons of papers, books, Quidditch magazines, old dishes, scarves, and quills went tumbling in all directions, landing around the table in a mini Himalaya of stuff. Harry's appointment book flew out of the maelstrom and landed neatly in his hand with a thump. Silence fell.

"Huh," said Ron, scratching his nose and looking from the table to Harry. "Clean that, shall I?"

Harry opened his book without comment, flipping through to March. Yep, he'd forgotten all right. Damn and damn again. He turned to the letter with reluctance.

_Mr. Potter:_

 

As you are happily no longer my student, I am under no obligation to offer my time and energies for your edification. If you no longer wish to avail yourself of such, kindly inform me in a civilized, adult manner, rather than simply ignoring our arranged appointments. A letter to this effect will be sufficient, though if you do take such a course it will simply confirm that you are and will continue to be an addle-brained imbecile, incapable of seeing past the tip of his own rather unattractive nose to the wider world and its concerns. -Severus Snape

"Great," muttered Harry, disgusted. Now he'd have to make up with the bastard. He'd pretty much rather put his own eyes out, but he suspected even Lupin's patience wouldn't stretch as far as canceling the twice monthly sessions with Snape.

"Is my nose attractive?" he asked suddenly.

Ron, kneeling on the floor half-heartedly sorting dirty dishes from clean, whipped his head around to squint up at him. "Sorry, mate," he said, "that's a bit kinky for my tastes."

"But it's better than Snape's?" Harry persisted.

"That I'll swear to," said Ron, without hesitation.

"Good. Say, aren't you supposed to be out with Hermione at that art thing?"

Ron turned back to the dishes, scowling. "Split up," he said shortly.

"Again?" said Harry, as he began to make mental bets on how long this particular off in the continual on/off floorshow that was Ron and Hermione would last. "Oh," he added, brightening. "That means I can ask her to the Minister's ball. Thanks, mate."

Later, dressed in boxers and T-shirt for sleep, Harry sat cross-legged on his bed. He shifted about for a few minutes, feeling rather foolishly that he ought to be in the lotus position or some such. At last he shrugged and settled down, hands uncurling on his knees. It was harder now, under the full spotlight of consciousness and intent, awkward to pace the corridors of his mind, unlatch the door, open it just a crack, allow awareness to quietly bloom. But that, of course, was the trouble - his magic was a force of instinct, wild and sudden and reactive, not to be governed by deliberation. He had never wielded it like a sword; it had always come from him as a tidal flood.

But yes, no doubt - it was easier now. Which, Harry thought distantly, was very strange. Because truth be told, he hadn't been practicing at all. The idea never even occurred to him in between the occasional appointments with Lupin or Snape or Moody or even Hermione. But the seed had been planted, and he found now, coming back to see, that something was growing there, wild and untended but strong.

_So. Chalk another failure up to the powers of just ignoring it_.

He had cast most of the wards on the flat. The thrum of his own magic struck a major chord in his bones, a fundamental pitch, steady and true. Ron's magic blended there, a temperamental harmonic. Beyond that was nothing of the same artificial complexity; this was a very Muggle neighborhood.

He shrank in on himself, turning the roving eye inward. His scar blazed, an umbilical cicatrix, now sparking faintly in disconnection. His wand hand was a marvel of channeled spells, veins and arteries lit up like fireworks with the ignition of will and wand. He'd broken his elbow when he was seventeen - the joint was still washed with a slowly fading bath of healing. His right hip was a fresh, vivid construction still, after nearly two years, the thigh a careful net of pain relief and regeneration.

Harry withdrew suddenly, closing that door inside himself. He did not want to see the rest, to examine the ethereal equivalent of spell-o-tape currently holding him together.

He rose too quickly, staggered, caught himself. He'd lost some time, he saw, glancing over at the clock. Hell. This was why he didn't do the bloody exercises. His head wasn't hurting, but it ought to be. This wasn't how it should be - wizards were supposed to wave their wands and turn rats yellow or set the dishes to scrubbing themselves. They weren't supposed to - to do the things he could do.

He thought about the dreamless sleep potion waiting in the medicine cabinet. He had a sudden horror of dreaming in magic, in that strange, senseless awareness of energy which his mind translated to color and texture and sound for simple helpless lack of any other comprehension. But no. He hadn't taken the potion in nearly a month - it was becoming a point of pride, almost. The bottle promised no side effects, but Harry had found that an uncaring numbness clouded his body and mind for the months he'd used it. And now he wondered whether he was feeling better because he had stopped drinking the potion, or if he had stopped drinking the potion because he was feeling better. In either case, a pleasantly itchy restlessness had taken up residence as the winter passed, and Harry did not want to sleep it away.

He went to bed unaided, curled on his side, rubbing his face against his pillow to feel the real, grounded texture of the cloth on his skin. This train was running away from him, he thought as sleep crept in. It seemed his magic was rising again with or without him, as it had done two years before. Only it was coming slowly this time: it was the difference between the creeping rise of the water table in the spring thaw and a tsunami. But it _was_ rising again, he could no longer deny, and the time would come very soon when he must either set his hand to the wheel, steady and certain, or get out of the way.

*

"Hi," said Harry. "Been a while, hasn't it? Sorry. I've been - well, erm no, actually, I haven't been particularly busy."

He reached out, took careful hold of Draco's chin and turned his head on the pillow so the gray eyes were at least pointed in his direction. Draco's skin was warm, preservative magic thrumming in his veins and through his muscles.

"I brought Quidditch scores," Harry said, rattling the paper. "And Sirius and I went and saw the Harpies and Falcons on Saturday. It was brilliant - the Snitch kept popping in and out every ten minutes, driving everyone to distraction until Agatha Puddlebrooke finally caught it. Sirius says he went to school with her mum, and it's funny because she couldn't fly herself out of a wet paper bag. It's nice. With Sirius, I mean. I don't think I'll ever get used to that, to him being here and free and all."

He paused, staring sightlessly down at the paper in his hands. "I went back to your house," he said abruptly. "Or your manor, I guess, but that just sounds daft. Lupin took me. Parvati's bought it, y'know, or maybe you don't. I reckon no one might've told you. But she's got it and she's turned it into a cathouse. You know, with girls and . . . things." He stopped again, rolling and unrolling the paper. "I kept wondering, you know, what you'd think about it. I mean, you'd be furious, I know that much, despoiling the Malfoy ancestral home and all. But I also reckon maybe you'd think it was funny, just a little tiny bit, though you'd never let anyone see." He huffed out a breath. "If you ever wake up, it'll be one hell of a show. But I bet you'd laugh, just a little." He shut his mouth abruptly. If Draco ever woke up, Harry would be the Queen of England.

And, of course, it wasn't as if Harry really knew anything about him, right down to how Draco took his tea. They'd been in accord for all of three hours there at the end, and hardly in the mood to chat. And then it was all over, and when Harry woke up in St. Mungo's, Draco was down the hall, face smoothed of rage and pain and disgust. Many of his reflexes were intact - he could blink, swallow, lubricate his eyes with emotionless tears. But everything else, all his snide superiority, jealousy, vicious cunning, and the pride that had saved Harry's life, all that comprised Draco Malfoy was gone.

"I hadn't been back before," Harry said. "It gave me the creeping horrors, but not as much as I was expecting. A lot of it is exactly the same." They'd found Draco in the drawing room, stretched out like an untouched sacrifice on the rug. That was probably all that had saved the emptied husk of his body; everyone who'd been in the dungeons or the south wing was not nearly so lucky. Except, of course, Harry himself - he supposed by mere dint of survival he'd been the luckiest there.

"I almost did something today," he said. "There was this construction site downtown, across from the pub where all the Ministry - where we go after work. And they were tearing down this office building, twenty floors at least. And I looked at it and I thought 'I could do that.' Just thinking about it, I could break it into a pile of bricks. Or make it disappear. Or turn it into a giant tortoise. Or set it on fire." He laughed mirthlessly. "I didn't try, of course. But I could have." Draco's slow breathing didn't change.

"You know," said Harry suddenly, "you're a lot easier to get along with when you're in a coma. I bet, if you hadn't been . . ." he paused, seeking for the proper words to name something that no one actually understood. "If you hadn't been hurt, I bet we'd never talk." But as it was, Harry could say whatever he liked. Draco already knew his secrets anyway - what a grim, unexpected pair he and Snape made.

"Anyway," he said, and shook out the paper. "The game was good. I don't know which you favor, but the Harpies won. Falcons took the Cannons though, of course . . ."

*

Harry stopped in the drawing room doors, waving Tobias away before he could be announced. The room smelled strongly of sage, aromatic clouds floating up from the enormous cauldron merrily bubbling away in the middle of one of Narcissa Malfoy's antique rugs. Lupin leaned on the desk, book in one hand and wand in the other, absent-mindedly writing florescent words in the air as he read to himself. _Asphodel. Ethereal. In spiritu_. And, hovering over the cauldron like an elongated bat was Snape, sleeves rolled to the elbow and the muscles of his forearm flexing in that perfectly controlled stir that Harry had never quite been able to master.

"You're late," said Parvati quietly, rising from the sofa and moving to Harry's side. Her dark hair was braided in a long, shiny plait down her back, just as she had worn it all through school.

"Sorry," said Harry. "I didn't mean to make you wait on me. There was someone I needed to tal-to visit."

Snape straightened, back turned. "Lupin," he said crisply, not stopping his movement. "Stir."

Lupin received custody of the slender glass rod without comment, stepping in to smoothly carry on the motion. Snape hovered a moment, observing critically, then turned in a flare of black robes and strode across to Harry.

"Potter," he said, in that way he had of dragging Harry's name out for a solid five seconds of freezing displeasure. "You grace us with your presence. Tell me, are you actually going to be any use, or shall we send you upstairs to one of the young 'ladies' so she can write a book about her night of astonishing pleasure with the slayer of the Dark Lord?"

"Oh," said Parvati, "There's no need. I have a Harry look-alike who supplies Polyjuice material, and I'm sure the girls have already partaken."

Harry blinked; she'd rarely been one for backchat at school. He didn't know she had it in her. _Of course she has guts, you idiot, look what she's done with her life. Guts to spare_.

Snape appeared equal parts irritated and nauseated. "Excuse us," he said brusquely, and pulled Harry up the corridor with a firm grip on his upper arm.

"Hey," said Harry, trying to jerk free.

Snape dragged him into the library annex, a small tiled alcove. The room beyond was unlit, a vast shadowed depth cloaked in the sort of holy silence that gathered around large collections of books.

"Well?" said Snape, sharp voice cutting through the peace. "Do you care to explain yourself?" His expression said he sincerely doubted it.

"Er," said Harry. "Yes. I forgot about our appointment. And I was going to write but I got sidetracked. Sorry."

"I have endeavored," said Snape, "I have labored, I have expended countless hours of time and effort in order to instill the smallest degree of discipline in you, Potter. And you _forgot_. Do you think I do this because I enjoy your sophomoric company? Do you think I _like_ you?"

"Heaven forbid," muttered Harry.

"I do it, Potter," said Snape, voice dropping to a hiss, "because a wizard of your caliber simply cannot be allowed to wander about the world, unrestrained. People will die, Potter. They already have, if you will recall. The Ministry may think they have you leashed, just by putting you behind a desk; none of them were faced with you in their classroom. You're a bloody menace, boy, and I will not have you inflicting your ungoverned self on anyone unfortunate enough to cross your path the next time you take it into your head to start a fire."

His face twisted, clenching in a momentary paroxysm of anger and . . . something else. Harry stared, aghast. This man had spent his life circling great wizards, close enough to get burned more than once. He had followed Voldemort and Dumbledore, hungry for such raw power, left only with the choice of which to serve. And now he was afraid of Harry Potter.

"I forgot on purpose," Harry said abruptly. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

Snape eyed him suspiciously. "You give promises so carelessly, Potter," he said coldly.

"No," said Harry. "I don't. I mean it. Set me a time. I'll come. Two hours, I'll try whatever you say until my head explodes."

Snape stared at him, momentarily struck dumb. Harry stared back calmly, eyes wide open, unafraid of intrusion. Snape had never tried, not once since Harry woke in St. Mungo's. It occurred to Harry for the first time now that perhaps it wasn't revulsion, perhaps Snape simply did not want to know any of the very few things Harry still held close, even from him. _Hell of a secret keeper you make, Snape_. He'd never seen Snape's face, after the very first day when they'd dragged Harry into Malfoy Manor, battered and snarling and terrified. Then he'd spat on Snape and called him traitor, and the potions master had stared back, stony and unblinking. Later, it was only his hands Harry was aware of, white and bony and cool, one cradled behind his head while the other worked a few drops of water between his lips. Snape had said nothing there in the dark of the dungeons, and Harry, three weeks into captivity, had not either. He had simply lain still as the disembodied hands, shaking only a very little, re-dressed him after Lucius Malfoy was through.

"Well," said Snape, in the dryly-irritated tones of someone whose tirade had just been unexpectedly derailed. "That displays remarkably good sense, Potter. I imagine it shan't last, but I expect you Thursday next, eight o'clock. Do not be late."

He turned on his heel and marched out. Harry followed after a moment, trailing him back to the drawing room half a dozen paces behind. Parvati still lingered in the doorway, profile carved of warm ivory in the firelight. Snape paused briefly as he passed her.

"In future, Miss Patil," Harry heard him say, "do please keep the details of your business arrangements to yourself." He passed on, stepping out of his way to give her a wide birth.

"Hmph," said Parvati, looking after him as Harry came to a stop beside her.

"Er," said Harry, suddenly and inexplicably self-conscious. "Sorry. That he's rude to you."

Parvati cast him a bemused, slant-eyed look. "He's always been rude to me," she said dryly. "He's not just doing it because I'm a whore."

Harry opened his mouth, then hastily shut it before anything too terribly idiotic could fall out.

"He's a classic Puritan," Parvati continued serenely. "Hostile. Afraid." She paused, and gave a tiny, mysterious smile. "Inexperienced."

"Er," said Harry, controlling the urge to flee. There was a quick, analytical look in her eye that made him want to go be somewhere else, out of sight.

Parvati laughed suddenly, dropping the unexpected richness of it into her elegantly cupped hands.

"What?" said Harry, startled.

"I was just wondering," she said, glancing over at Snape again, "how many points from Gryffindor running a whorehouse is worth."

Harry coughed, let himself laugh. He leaned against the doorjamb, struck suddenly weak by the unexpected surge of easy, uncomplicated mirth. Parvati laughed with him, dark eyes dancing and a faint flush high on her cheeks.

Lupin looked over and cleared his throat gently. "Shall we get started, then?" he asked, a quizzical tilt to his mouth.

As it turned out, Malfoy Manor had a truly mad compliment of windows and doors. Harry knew this as every last one had to be opened while the vapors from Snape's aromatic brew were wafted about the house from small cencers. Harry worked his way through the second floor, knocking on doors and walking through darkened suites done up in every style imaginable, from gaudily trimmed in gold and velvet to sleekly modern. Most of the residents were out for the night, but a few answered his knocks, dressed casually or in robes. They were, Harry noted with no real surprise, a collection of extraordinarily beautiful people (he included in this tally the two men who answered his knocks at the far end of the north corridor). Parvati was probably the youngest in the house, he judged, though he was also certain that she reigned here, serenely unchallenged.

They gathered in the drawing room once again, pausing briefly to reorganize when it was discovered that, with all doors and windows open, Malfoy Manor could work up a comfortable wind tunnel down the central corridor. But once Lupin had regathered his parchments, the meat of the magic could begin.

Harry sat on the sofa as Lupin had adroitly directed, set to . . . observe. Snape, across the room, stared fixedly at him for a long moment, a cool challenge in his eyes. _Prove it_, he seemed to say.

_Fine_, thought Harry, straightening his shoulders with grim bravado. He watched Lupin begin the spell, voice smooth and strangely musical over the Latin, wand tracing intricate patterns in the mist from the cauldron. This was a spell of simple command, as Harry understood it, a straightforward exhortation to any lingering spirits to take themselves off somewhere else.

Harry took a breath and squinched his eyes shut. Somehow doing that made it easier to _see_. He tried to relax, and with surprising ease he began to perceive the spell taking shape around Lupin and reaching out wispy tentacles to wind through the rest of the house. Harry followed its strands from room to room, testing their vigor and finding them strong and vibrant with that strange, off-rhythm pulse of Lupin's inhuman magic. Beyond Lupin's spell lay the house, ripe with its own gathering power. Harry was aware of a great heat at his back. The old firebed, he realized, the south wing not cooled even after two years.

And then Harry's courage deserted him. It was as if he had gotten onto a broom for the very first time, risen to hover sedately at waist level, and then come back down. The open sky lay above him, so close he could reach up and close his fist around the sun. It would be so easy to do, easy as flying and just as glorious to keep on reaching now, to invest Lupin's spell with himself, feel each filament like a corpuscle of his own strange, ethereal body, make them pulse with the fire ready at his fingertips. It would be so easy, and he simply could not do it. Anywhere else. But not here. He began to withdraw.

Everything happened all at once. Harry was dimly aware, with a part of him that still heard with his ears, of Lupin speaking the last word, his voice coming down on the command, strong with the will to back it up. The spell flared to life, blazed with magic, as if the house were an electrical socket and the spell a plug.

And then the house shrugged like a horse with an unwelcome rider, and Harry was never able to tell after whether it had truly moved or if it was something indefinably magical. Because something was happening, a presence rising out of the darkness, shrieking and incoherent and furious.

_Get me out get me out get me out_!

And the house dashed the spell away like Hagrid slapping a flea. Harry leapt, stung, eyes popping open just as a _crack_ filled the room. His head was still ringing with - what _was_ that?

Lupin stood over the cauldron, one hand already at his temple, face working in pain. At his feet, the two halves of his wand lay, split cleanly and still sparking with magical overload.

"Oh," said Lupin into the silence. "Bugger."

*

"Ah, Mr. Potter!" cried the Minister for Magic. "And his lovely companion."

"Happy birthday, Sir," said Harry, feeling Hermione twitch ever so slightly beside him as the Minister's eyes slid over her, lingering just a moment too long. He was a big, florid man who liked everything lovely and intoxicating and rich, and that to excess. All told, Harry supposed he was the perfect embodiment of the 'just fine, just fine, carry on' stance the Ministry had adopted the moment the ashes settled.

"Thank you, dear boy. And you, lovely lady, may I beg the pleasure of a spot on your crowded dance card? Excellent," he sailed on without pause, "have a lovely time, the both of you."

They stepped forward, clearing the short receiving line, and moved out together into the ballroom proper.

"I could be at home, catching up on my journal reading right now," muttered Hermione.

"But you're not, because you love me," said Harry, snagging glasses off a passing tray.

"Well yes," said Hermione, "and also I find it expedient to have you in my debt now and again. Shall we dance?"

"Er, sure," said Harry, deciding not to ask.

He could, at least, not embarrass himself on the dance floor these days. The Minister's Protocol Head had taken him aside after the very first function he'd attended, and Harry had endured a humiliating series of lessons before he could keep his feet from tripping each other up. Hermione made it look easy, stepping neatly through the set, silver high heels flashing.

"You look very nice," Harry said, realizing that he might not have done that yet. They'd met just up the street from the Minister's official residence, as Hermione had no desire to accidentally run into Ron at this stage in d tente negotiations.

"Thank you," said Hermione, smiling in that way that made Harry sure she was secretly amused with him. That was all right, as long as she didn't expect him to ask intelligent questions when she talked about work.

He crowd-watched over her shoulder, eye sliding disinterestedly over wizards in stylish dress robes and witches in colorful gowns. He saw a woman from the back, sculpted shoulders rising bare from a dark blue gown. He found himself staring at the flash of a gem in her earlobe, the smooth line of her jawbone as her head tilted to the side. And then she turned and he nearly missed a step to see Parvati here, eyes dark and luminous, a smile on her face. And then reason caught up with his senses and he realized that the dark hair was cut in a short, stylish bob, not left long and luxuriant. It was Padma, so exactly like her sister as to fool their own parents, sometimes. Of course - the Minister would hardly invite somebody . . . like her to his birthday. People would talk.

"So," said Hermione, tapping him briskly on the forehead with her closed fan to get his attention. "I hear you're helping Lupin out with a little problem."

"Oh," said Harry. "Erm, yes. A haunting, we think."

"Oh, excellent," said Hermione. "That will be a thorny one, won't it?"

"Sure," said Harry. "If you _like_ banging your head against a problem."

"I assume you've tried the obvious solutions?" said Hermione. "The classic exorcism spells, I mean. I should write to Lupin - Hironimus Chunder has a fascinating derivation of his own on the technique in Supernatural Pests and What to Do About Them."

"Lupin's rather out of commission at the moment," said Harry. "His wand got snapped last week. Trying one of those, as it happens."

"Really?" said Hermione, coming to a sudden stop. "How extraordinary. Did you see it happen? What do you think he did wrong?"

"He didn't," said Harry, tugging her until she started moving again. "It just . . . went wrong." He bit down on the rest of what he was going to say, which was that he rather thought the spell had taken the piss right out of something. Or someone. Hermione was getting more scientifically minded by the day, and she would only frown at him.

"Well . . ." Hermione began, and then trailed off, blinking over Harry's shoulder.

"What," said Harry, starting to turn them.

"Er," said Hermione, applying some abrupt counterrevolutionary pressure. "I was just thinking, erm, of other sources of information. Yes, I rather think if you give me a few days I can - bugger it, you great lout."

She yielded to Harry's greater strength, and they revolved sedately through the next steps, revealing a new set of dancers to Harry's eye. He took a quick scan, looked again, and then away.

"Harry?" said Hermione gently, after a moment. "Harry, I'm sorry, I was supposed to warn you."

"It's fine," said Harry.

"She should have said when you first asked her," Hermione muttered fretfully. "I told her - do you want to go sit down?"

"No," said Harry calmly. "It's fine, Hermione." He looked back, and this time he met Ginny's eyes over the shoulder of her partner, a man who topped her six feet by at least a few inches. She held his gaze, appearing deeply uncomfortable, and then looked away.

"Are you sure?" asked Hermione, watching him keenly.

"Yes," said Harry, and found a smile somewhere. "It's not like she could spend forever swapping out with you to be my escort so I have someone to talk to at these things."

"Hmph," said Hermione. "It's not like we drew straws or anything."

"I know," said Harry, looking down fondly at her. What would he do, he wondered suddenly, when she and Ron patched things up and she was unavailable again? "Anyway," he said. "What were you saying?"

Hermione gave him a jaundiced look. "You only ask me to talk about research when you want to distract me."

"That's because it works."

She sniffed, scowled, but apparently decided to let it go, for now. Harry huffed out a covert breath, surprised at the relatively easy escape. "Well," she said, "there's the Chunder. Do you know exactly what spell Lupin tried?"

"No. It involved a stinky potion, though."

"Oh, that narrows it down," said Hermione, who was getting better at sarcasm the older she got.

"Sorry," said Harry. "I was just there to, er, watch."

"And?"

He shrugged uncomfortably. "And . . . dunno. It's not like I have laser vision or something."

"I reckon you could," said Hermione, diverted. "I could put together a-"

"No."

She pouted ridiculously at him and Harry, laughing, wondered just who was distracting whom.

"I'm supposed to go over there tonight, actually," he said. "Mal-Parvati's, I mean. To, erm, watch. We've never actually seen any of it, Lupin or me, so we thought maybe I should hang about a bit and see what happens. It'll be a week before Lupin's new wand is ready." That, and Lupin rather thought Harry would be the most useful right now, seeing as no one else had heard a thing when the spell shorted out.

"Can you imagine?" said Hermione, wincing. "It's amazing how reliant we become on little sticks of wood."

"Yeah," said Harry, who had, on a whim, boiled the water this morning with a tap of his fingertip. He'd known he could do magic without a wand, of course - there had once been a smoking hole in the side of Malfoy Manor to prove it. But somehow, the small domesticity of the thing was more shocking. He rather suspected, if he wanted, he could put his wand away right now and never use it again.

"Anyway," said Hermione briskly. "Say hello to Parvati for me." She paused, considering. "You know, Harry, it might be good for you to spend more time over there."

"I'm sorry?" said Harry, startled.

"Well," said Hermione, in her resolute 'I read it in a book' voice, "in some cultures it's traditional for a young person to, erm, contract out his or her first sexual experience. Rather a good system, if you ask me - takes care of the embarrassment and there's a lifelong positive experience to draw on."

"Hermione," said Harry, in a choked undertone.

"Oh, don't look like that. It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. But still, you might want to consider-"

"I'm not a virgin," said Harry, brusquely.

Hermione stopped, blinked. She cast a reflexive look across the room to the oblivious Ginny, and Harry was uncomfortably reminded that girls had their own impenetrable lines of communication. Then she looked back at him, and Harry almost recoiled at the gentle understanding in her eyes.

"I thought so," she said in a hush. They were somehow still moving to the music, dancing close and speaking almost into each other's ears. "My suggestion still applies." Her voice was trembling, ever so slightly. "It might . . . help."

"Hermione," he said again. _Please. Stop_.

She inhaled delicately, paused, and shut her lips. Their eyes met and she nodded once, in that firm way she had when she didn't want to cry.

The dance came to a flourishing conclusion. "Excuse me," Harry muttered, and fled. She let him go without a murmur, but he could feel her eyes on his back all across the ballroom, even out the French doors onto the terrace.

He leaned at the railing for a long time, breathing through incipient panic. It was a cool, early spring night, and he was glad for the heavy fabric of his dress robes. His hands grew cold. The house loomed at his back, blazing with lights and humming with people. _They want this to be mine one day_, he thought with sudden, awful clarity. _Because you want a wizard like me in the center of it all, where everyone can watch. Did Dumbledore feel like this_?

"Harry?"

He jumped violently, and an abandoned wineglass on the railing tumbled off to smash in the rock garden below.

"Sorry," said Ginny hesitantly.

"It's okay," said Harry, starting over with the breathing again.

"No," said Ginny, "I mean, I'm sorry."

_Bloody hell_. "It's okay," said Harry quickly. "Really."

"I should have told you. I knew you'd assume I was busy but I didn't want to just write you a note and then we couldn't schedule lunch and-"

"Ginny. Really. You don't owe me anything."

She was standing a full half dozen paces back from the rail, but the moon was bright and full in the sky and he could see her lip tremble. "Yeah," she said. "I was getting that."

_Bloody_ fucking _hell_. "That's not what I - you shouldn't have to --. Bugger." There was just no way, he already knew, to tell her this, to explain that he'd woken to her at his bedside, smiling hopefully, and felt . . . nothing. They'd set themselves on a collision course, timed it for the end of the war. But when it was all over they had passed like ships in the night, she on to the next great adventure and he out to sea, alone for a time. And now that he was finding his own way, now that he cared enough to try, he found her already gone, leagues ahead. She was eighteen and beautiful and a heroine of the siege - he'd known she wasn't going to wait. It didn't even hurt. Well, not much.

"Er," he said, and swallowed. "Is he, I mean . . ."

"He's studying potions under Borgin. He's a bit older, but I like him."

"Erm, okay," said Harry. "Good. I'm . . . glad."

There was a horribly awkward moment then, the silence resounding over the civilized strains of a waltz drifting from the ballroom.

"I should get back," she said at last.

"Yes," said Harry. "And I should go." He didn't know until he said it that this was his intention.

He found Hermione chatting with a few of their Auror acquaintances. She excused herself the moment Harry touched her shoulder.

"I'm going," he said. "To Parvati's, I mean. It's a bit early, but I'm done here."

"Okay," said Hermione. "I'll walk out with you."

She said nothing more as they made their escape, miraculously unremarked, but she hugged him hard at the apparition point. "I love you," she said into his shoulder, fiercely.

"I know," said Harry. "Me, too." He stepped back and apparated.

Tobias answered his knock in coat and tails, looking rather like the Minister's butler taking cloaks at the ball.

"Sir," he said, looking over his shoulder before he stepped aside. "Madam was not expecting you so soon."

"I know," said Harry. "My other engagement ended early and I figured . . ." He trailed off, becoming aware of a low hum of voices floating out from the drawing room. It sounded like a party, the buzz of male intonation and the descant of female laughter.

"Perhaps you would like to wait in the library," said Tobias."

"Er yes," said Harry. "That would be good." It hadn't occurred to him, until this very moment, that Harry Potter showing up at a cathouse in the middle of normal business hours would probably land on the front page of the _Prophet_ before he could say 'juicy gossip.' He diverted himself briefly with imagining an attempt to explain it to his coworkers, and found himself surprisingly amused.

Tobias deposited him in a cozy nook that Parvati had apparently adopted as her office. She'd left a scatter of parchments and ledgers on a low table. The library books themselves had apparently come with the house, and Harry paced the aisles in some bemusement, wondering what Hermione wouldn't give to have a good rummage through the Malfoy collection.

Parvati found him on his knees at a lower shelf, watching the cover of Fire: A Journal of Dragonkeeping flame at him. She was wearing a dark red gown, full skirts just brushing the carpet and a diamond flashing in the shadow of her deeply cut neckline.

"Er, hi," said Harry, scrambling to his feet. Her hair was pinned back from her face at the temples, and then streamed down her back, loose. It made her look a good ten years older, in the very best way.

"Good evening," said Parvati. "You're early."

"Sorry. The ball was boring."

"Well, I'd invite you in for a drink, but I imagine you wouldn't accept."

"It's okay," said Harry. "I can just wait here. Erm when do you reckon . . ."

"I should have all this evening's clients settled within the hour," she said. "You can entertain yourself for the duration?"

"Sure," said Harry. "Go, erm, about your business."

She inclined her head and swept away, skirts belling out beneath the faithfully gloved curves from hip to shoulder.

She was as good as her word, returning within three quarters of an hour, looking well pleased. "Ah," she said, sinking into the sofa and stretching.

"Good night?" asked Harry, setting his book aside.

"We shall continue to eat," she said dryly. "Provided, of course, nothing untoward happens."

"I'm rather hoping it does, actually," said Harry. "Might give us some ideas."

"There are disturbances, and then there are disturbances," said Parvati.

"Oh," said Harry, laboriously working that through. "But, I mean, that's what Tobias is for, isn't it? To keep everyone in line?"

"He's there to make you think so, at least," she said dryly. "Practically, however . . ." she touched her skirts, and Harry knew suddenly that her wand lay ready just out of sight. Of course she was no fool, and not to be trifled with. She had been a part of Dumbledore's Army, and survived the siege. "I wouldn't mind, you know, having a ghost," she said. "If only it were well-behaved. It makes for a proper wizarding place."

"I know what you mean," said Harry. "The Hogwarts ghosts were generally a good lot to have around."

"We had a ghoul in the basement, growing up," she said, smiling. "It used to shriek something awful during thunderstorms - I think the lightning tickled."

"I saw your sister tonight," Harry said. "Didn't get a chance to speak to her, though."

Parvati's smile slid away, and her face took on the serene stillness of a portrait. "How did she look?"

"Nice," said Harry, and then realizing that might not be adequate, "I mean, great. She was wearing this blue dress and she had her hair sort of down. She was with Brit Hedger, I think, on the Auror squad."

"Ah yes, the blue Mathilde," said Parvati, shaking her head. "I told her to stay away from those cool colors. I wonder if they're engaged yet? He's a good catch - he'll go far at the Ministry." She glanced at Harry. "We aren't speaking these days. Or rather, she isn't speaking to me."

"Oh," said Harry. "She doesn't, erm, approve?"

"No," said Parvati calmly. "But I never asked her to. Or my parents. Or housemates. Or friends."

_She's lonely. Successful and stubborn, but_ . . . "Can I ask you something?" said Harry.

"You may."

He swallowed. She was more than a little intimidating sitting there, hands clasped in her lap, skirts draped elegantly over her crossed knees. "Why?" he asked. "Why did you - are you doing this?"

"Don't you know?" she said, one dark eyebrow sweeping up. "I'm good at it, and it makes me happy."

"Oh," said Harry, flushing. "Those are really good reasons."

"The best, in fact," she said, watching him, head to one side. "I have a talent, and I enjoy exercising it. Not for sex," she added, watching his face, "though I am certainly skilled there, as well. But I can spend half an hour with a person, look at their clothes, the way they've done their hair, how they hold their body and speak, and I will know what they want from an encounter. I know when a man does not love his wife, when a woman is not being satisfied by her partner, when someone just needs some relief or abandon or kindness. And I send them to one of my men or women - or perhaps two - and they get what they need." She grinned. "And then they pay me."

"That's . . . quite a skill," said Harry, wondering suddenly what she saw when she looked at his wrinkled dress robes, disobedient hair, casually fisted hands.

"Do you know who taught it to me?" she asked.

"Haven't the faintest."

"Madam Trelawney, of course. That's what she did, you know, only to a different end. She used to deal solitaires for us during the siege, over and over again night after night, and she'd tell us that we would live." She smiled sadly. "It wasn't true in all cases. But it was good to think so."

Harry nodded. Draco had given him that, though it certainly hadn't been his intention. "I'm going to end this," Draco had said, leaning over him. "Malfoys do not crawl, and they do not beg. Not for him, not for anybody." And he had vanished into the dark, Voldemort's murder on his mind, and he had not come back.

"You're lucky," Harry said, impulsively. "To have found what you're good at."

The eyebrow rose again, a wrinkle marring her smooth forehead. "And you aren't, special assistant to the Minister for Magic Potter?"

"No," said Harry. "Not particularly. What did you say you were working on, there?"

"Accounts," said Parvati, bemused. "I'm dreadful at it all, if you must know, but it must be done. The very thought of last year's taxes makes me want to go lie down, though."

"Oh," said Harry. "Can I help? I've gotten rather good at that sort of thing," he added, off her look. "I, erm, incorporated some of my holdings last year. It makes things easier." Easier, in his case, being a synonym for anonymous.

Parvati made a sweeping gesture of beckoning. "By all means," she said. "I'm frankly much better at handling Mr. Sarbane's leather fetish."

"Don't tell me about it," said Harry, scooting over to sit beside her. "Please. Now, what's the trouble?"

The comment about continuing to eat hadn't been entirely facetious, he discovered. True, the prices she charged left him blinking in frugal astonishment, but her employees took most of the fee straight off the top. And the overhead was frankly astounding, between the payments on the house, salaries for Tobias and a few other staff members, and all the myriad and exponential expenses of running the business. They spent the equivalent of Harry's monthly ministry salary on wine alone - good wine, Parvati assured him with a sniff.

"I thought about a more centralized system," she explained as Harry began tallying business expenses to be written off. "Paying out a flat rate to each employee, with small commissions for repeat clients, that sort of thing." She shrugged, brushing long hair away from her face. "But not all jobs are equal, and I want everyone to have maximum incentives while still being allowed to pick and choose."

"Mmm," said Harry, who had never before considered the advantages and disadvantages of various prostitution business models. "Where's your salary?"

"I just take what's left at the end of every month," she said, shrugging. "I thought I'd wait until we're more established and stable before setting a regular figure."

"Mmm," said Harry again. "Have you been keeping track? You'll have to do your personal taxes too, y'know."

"Oh bugger," she said with feeling, leaning over to the table. Unlike Hermione, she seemed to be one of those women who was as comfortable in a formal gown as her pajamas. The dress bared her back, Harry saw, catching glimpses of smooth skin through the fall of her hair. Her breasts were high and round, and Harry found his eyes lingering on the lush swells above her neckline.

"Do you take clients?" said Harry suddenly.

She glanced over at him, unperturbed. "Sometimes. Not often. It's generally best for me to supervise. I'm taking fewer as the house fills."

"I see," said Harry, swallowing. "Erm, did you keep track of your income from that separately from your general profit?"

She blinked at him. "Did I need to?"

Harry sighed. "I can do it."

"Grand," said Parvati. "I will go do something I'm good at, which is fetch tea and preside over the pot with elegance and style."

She rustled away, and Harry bent over her ledgers. She still had very girly handwriting, he noted, and a truly lackluster interest in bookkeeping.

On November tenth of last year, a man named Benjamin Thorne had paid 200 galleons to spend a night with her. Harry blinked, struck by the stark, precise metric of desire. She took strangers into her bed and her body on the acquaintance of a few minutes cocktail chatter and a stack of gold, and then she walked away, unaffected but for a scrawled notation. Or, he wondered suddenly, did she? She'd said she was good at it, and that it made her happy. Was that her secret? Not that she forgot each encounter as soon as it was over, but that she savored each like a sip of wine, enough to put telltale color in her cheeks? _She loves it_.

She returned with a tray of tea things and biscuits, balancing it momentarily in the crook of her arm as she turned and stepped and left her shoes on the rug. "Sugar?" she asked, silver spoon poised.

"Um sure. Just one, please." He looked hastily down to the ledger, hissing in exasperation and scratching out the last total. He was finding it suddenly difficult to add factors of a hundred. Parvati came and leaned over him, setting cup and saucer and a few biscuits on a napkin at his elbow. Harry looked up, a thank you on his lips. The bodice of her gown was beaded, he could see now, in complex, curving patterns. Her hair had slid forward over her shoulder, and strands of it brushed against his cheek.

"Thanks," said Harry, and reached for the tea.

"Oh for goodness sake," said Parvati, in tones of such ringing exasperation she sounded eerily like her fourteen-year-old self at the Yule Ball. "What do I have to do, _rip my clothes off_?"

"Huh?" said Harry.

She huffed, stomped a bare foot soundlessly on the rug, and leaned over to kiss him. Harry froze, realized that yes, his pulse was hopping but it wasn't actually panic, and reached for her. He got a handful of hair, which streamed distractingly over his wrists as he slid his arms around her and found the bare skin of her back. She made a pleased sound and slid right into his lap, skirts crumpling between them. One strap slid magically off her shoulder, and Harry turned his head, fascinated by the tiny, nearly invisible freckles along her collarbone. He walked his fingers down her spine and she sighed, twisting to face him fully and swinging a leg across his lap. He dropped a hand to her thigh for support, and he knew, in an incontrovertible flash, that there was no underwear beneath those smooth, silky lines.

"It makes you crazy," she said, breaking away for a moment. "Do you want me to tell you about all the men I've had? There were a few women, too. Do you want to know what I let them do to me, how good it was?"

Harry made a sound into her shoulder, startling himself with the guttural yearning of it. He cupped her breast, thrilling to the peak of her nipple beneath her bodice, and then against his bare fingers when he slipped his hand inside.

"That's it," she crooned, guiding his head down. He could hitch her skirts up, Harry thought wildly, slide both hands up between her thighs. She would be soft and bare and mysteriously womanly in his hands. And he could pull open his dress robes and undo his trousers and just -

Glass shattered, and a shower of tea scalded the back of his neck. Parvati leapt off him, swearing like a sailor and cradling her burned arm. The teapot lay in pieces on the rug, having dashed itself to bits against the wall, as if thrown by an invisible hand.

From somewhere in the house, a woman screamed, and a man shouted in protest. Parvati scrambled with her dress, and Harry caught a glimpse of bare breasts, nipples stiff and rosy.

"I'll be back," she said, waving him down as he began to rise. "It's fine. They sounded angry, not hurt. You stay here. And if you see fit to exercise some of those great wizard powers and fix this, be my guest." She raced off, leaving her pumps abandoned on the rug.

Harry shook his head, scattering hot droplets of tea from his hair. "Am not a great wizard," he muttered, glad no one was around to hear the sulky tone. It was a pro forma protest, anyway. "Erm, hello?" he said, glancing from the teapot to the spreading stain on the hardwood paneling. "Is anybody there?" There was no reply.

Harry sighed, shrugged, and closed his eyes. It wasn't just easy now, it was insistent, as if something were pounding at the door of his brain, demanding entrance. So Harry let it in.

The nonexistent south wing was still blazing two years later, hot and pulsing like a slowly dying star. Harry was dazzled momentarily with the aftermath of his own magic. Voldemort's death was there, an oily stain, and Lucius Malfoy's, and more and more. He'd burned them alive, so hot and so fierce they'd not felt a thing. He stared a moment longer into the heart of his own rage, and then turned his back. Whatever it was throwing teapots and interrupting trysts, it wasn't there.

The Ministry had tried, he thought, amused. They'd removed spells like layers of paint, always another beneath. The house was an extraordinary construct of centuries of Malfoys, the blood and the pride and the power bound up in spells whose casting took generations.

It wasn't hard to find - the spell grew like a malignant tree at the center of it all, the magic of Malfoy pride and Malfoy rage. It had existed long before Perditus's great great great whatever, Harry thought dimly, a vicious, clever, vengeful trap for the spirit of any Malfoy who dared betray his kin. Of course, he thought, bemused. The Malfoy pride was endless and overweening - it must from time to time collect in one particularly wayward specimen, who might come to think he knew better than his father. And that would never do.

So Harry plucked it like a weed. The spell shrieked, a purely inhuman sound like one of the spiders under Crouch's Cruciatus. It writhed and spat in his hands, lashing him with backfiring whips of magic. But it was the easiest thing in the world to draw it up, rip out its ancient roots, hold it up to the light of his slowly cooling fire. He was bigger than it, stronger than seven hundred years of Malfoys combined.

And it died, crumpling into nothingness. And out of it came the shades of Malfoys past, the independent, the foolhardy, the mad. Not many, but enough. Their spirits were ragged, threadbare with confinement, and they crumbled to dust like papyrus in his fingertips.

All accept one. It lingered, casting about as if in puzzlement, strong and vital like a freshly uprooted tree, but not long so.

"That way," said Harry, and gave it a shove.

He opened his eyes.

"Well that's a new one," said Parvati, hurrying back in. "Frogs. A bloody rain of bloody frogs. And indoors, more's the -" She stopped. "What is it?"

"Er," said Harry, and shook his head hard. "I fixed it. And I think Draco's awake."

*

They were in the kitchen when Harry came in, squabbling over the difference between a flambe and an inferno.

"Excellent," said Sirius, breaking off in mid-flow when Harry appeared in the doorway. "Dearest godson. Come tell Moony he's being a stiff-necked old coot. We can get a new pot."

"And ceiling," murmured Lupin.

"Can paint it over," said Sirius with an airy wave.

Lupin sighed. "You're the guest, Harry, Indian or Chinese?"

"Indian," said Sirius promptly. "What?" he added. "He's not a guest, he's _Harry_."

"Indian, please," said Harry. "Where's your owl?"

"I want it spicy," said Sirius. "I want it to take a few layers of skin off the roof of my mouth."

"We know," said Lupin dryly. "Do you think you can manage some tea without having to call in the Department of Magical Disasters and Catastrophes?"

"But of course," said Sirius, with worrying confidence.

Sirius came out a few minutes later, trailed by floating mugs, just as Lupin sent the owl off. He accepted a cup, sipped, and coughed.

"That's coffee, Padfoot," he said. "And I don't recall saying anything about Irish."

"Hush," said Sirius. "I think Harry has news."

Lupin's head swiveled and he eyed Harry thoughtfully. "So he does," he said. "Harry?"

"Er," said Harry, and took a hasty gulp. "Well, the thing is, there might be a story or two in The _Prophet_. About me, I mean."

"Oh?" said Sirius, unimpressed. "You do something scandalous?"

"Yes, actually," said Harry.

Sirius's mug stopped halfway to his lips. "Well it's about time!"

"I've quit my job at the Ministry," Harry said in a rush.

There was a brief, deflated pause. "Well, we knew that was going to happen," said Sirius.

"You did?"

"Naturally. You've been bored out of your gourd, and they were never going to come to their senses and put you through the Auror Academy."

"Actually they offered," said Harry, looking away. "When I turned in my letter. I said no. I, erm, don't actually want that."

"Oh," said Sirius, who had never achieved his coveted full Auror status before he was imprisoned. He eyed Harry assessingly, then shrugged. "That can't be the scandal, though. Tell us -- does it involve a paternity suit? Or a wench of ill repute? Or maybe some livestock?"

"No, yes, and no," said Harry.

"Ah," murmured Lupin quietly to himself, a smile curving his lips.

"I've taken something part time," Harry said. "I'm keeping books for Parvati Patil. And we're, er, dating." He stumbled momentarily over the word, a hot flush creeping up his neck. It didn't seem the most fitting expression for what they were doing, but he couldn't think of any other. They made each other laugh, and when he'd screwed up his courage and sent her roses last week, she'd put them in a vase on her nightstand and thanked him with dinner in London. Maybe it was a good enough word, after all.

Sirius and Lupin were looking at each other. This was better than Ron, at least, who had gone bug-eyed and awestruck and promptly asked Harry if he had an in for discounts now. The silence was stretching out, and Harry shifted uncomfortably, something inside of him which had never outgrown the cupboard under the stairs beginning to quietly panic.

"Well," said Sirius at last, looking back at him. "At least it'll knock Draco Malfoy down to page 2. And, really, it's been a while since I've had scurrilous lies told about me in the _Prophet_ \- we should have them to dinner, eh Moony?"

"Delighted," said Lupin.

Grand," said Sirius. "Bring the young lady next week, Harry." There was an imperious tapping at the window. "Chow!" said Sirius, springing up. As he passed behind Harry his hand settled briefly at the back of his neck, squeezing warmly. _Silly bugger_, it seemed to say. _Life's too short. We both know that_.

*

Outside the heavy drapes, dawn was just beginning to creep across the manor grounds. Harry's body was already adjusting to the new, half-nocturnal schedule, and his brain was telling him it was time to sleep. But Parvati was sprawled beside him, sheets tangled about her legs and hair everywhere. She'd come up from the drawing room after the last client was squared away, left her gown in a puddle on the rug, and come to bed. She'd ridden him hard then, head thrown back as the sweat dripped between her breasts, one hand braced on his chest and the fingers of the other working between her own thighs. Harry had closed his eyes, unable to watch because he knew if he did he wouldn't last. And then she'd come, hips grinding and thighs quivering, and lifted herself off him to sprawl out on her back. She'd spread her legs and pulled him close, holding him tight while he slipped inside her again and went a little mad, like he always did.

She had an arm thrown across her face, baring the soft, tender underside. Harry ran a finger down it and let his hand settle behind her shoulder. He liked to sleep like that, a hand tucked up between her thighs or spread on her belly or cradling the curve of a breast. She said he was a cuddler, which was just another thing Harry was adding to a long list of new facts about himself and rules for conducting a healthy relationship. For himself, he just thought it made waking up that much more fun.

"Mmm," she said dreamily. "That was nice."

"Glad to be of service," said Harry dryly. "Feel better?"

"Much." She stretched, pointing her toes under the sheets. "Draco Malfoy can go to hell," she said contentedly.

"He won't get the house," Harry said. "It was sold, as legal as you get." He hesitated. "And he doesn't really want it anyway. He's just making a scene because he likes to."

"You sure?" Parvati asked quietly, her voice showing for the first time the fear she hadn't let him see when the papers from Draco's solicitor arrived.

"Oh yes," said Harry. "I'm sure." In point of fact, Draco never wanted to set foot in his ancestral home again. And no wonder, after being magically bound within its walls for nearly two years, with only the disintegrating shades of ancient Malfoy blood traitors to keep him company.

"Good," she said. "Because it's mine now, and he can't have it, anyway." There was a silence, and Harry thought perhaps she was going to sleep. "Do you think you'll ever be friends?" she asked, not moving.

"No," said Harry. "Probably not. We . . . I saved his life, or something like it, and he hates that. And somehow I still feel like I owe him." He shut his lips on anything further, and she didn't ask. They'd had only the one thing in common, him and Draco, and that imperfectly; Harry nursing his hate like new kindling, and Draco horrified and disgusted to see his father crawl and beg for the privilege of setting the match, all unknowing.

Harry had seen him only the once, just before he was out of the hospital. He was pale and wobbly like a new hatchling, disused muscles bending reluctantly to his commands. The interview had been stilted and rather awful, and Harry doubted either one of them cared to repeat the experience.

It was strange; he'd half-expected to miss Draco, his silent, stalwart company. But he was finding that he could say some of the things to Parvati that he would have saved for Draco, and that it was different to talk to someone who talked back.

"Mmm," murmured Parvati. "Wonder what the _Prophet_ will say about you today?"

"I wonder what it will say about _you_," Harry retorted. "As of yesterday, you've enslaved me with a dark infatuation potion and I obey your every whim." He frowned. "Or was that the other way around?"

"Mmm," murmured Parvati again, with a different intonation entirely. "Kinda hot, don't you think?"

Harry slid his hand down her ribs and stomach, pressed his palm flat between her legs. She was hot, still wet. She sighed, stretched, arching her back. He wanted her again, slowly this time, with his face buried in her breasts and her legs around his back. _Drought to flood_, he thought, laughing a little as she rolled toward him. It'd been three weeks, and he still couldn't keep his hands off her to save his life.

He slipped a finger inside her and she arched, bearing down hard. She crooned when he pressed his face between her thighs, early morning stubble leaving marks on her tender skin. She'd taught him this the second night, in quiet, husky-voiced instruction that dissolved into sweeter sounds as he figured out what was what. Then she'd rewarded him with things that still made his eyes roll back, just to think of them.

He didn't linger now. She lifted her hips and slipped a pillow beneath, and Harry knelt up. He watched her face avidly, going slow. She loved this, the push of his fingers or tongue or prick into her, and she loved to show it, too. There was something about that, about watching her pleasure that always got Harry in the gut and the balls and the heart. He found himself wondering more and more as time passed what she saw when she looked back at him. What did she read in the way he took his tea, in the time he spent puttering in the manor gardens, in his inexperience?

He was afraid to ask.

She sighed, pulled him down, and kissed him. "Bet the _Prophet_ will say what a good lay you are," she breathed into his mouth.

"God I hope not," said Harry.

"I'll write that dreadful, mudraking front-pager of theirs," she said, and dug her fingers into his back. "Tell her that I love the way you fuck me." She watched him blush and start, grinning.

"Don't you dare," said Harry, with some honest apprehension. He rather thought she would dare, with a shrug and a laugh.

"Hmm," she said sweetly. "I suggest you tire me out, then." She paused. "Or at least give it your best shot."

"Right," said Harry, who had a very hard time walking away from a challenge. He hugged her suddenly, pressing his face into her hair and feeling bubbles of laughter rise like Champagne. How did she know how to make him feel this way?

Maybe he would ask her after all, he thought a long, uncounted time later. He'd managed to exhaust her, though at the cost of leaving himself breathless and wrung out. He found himself watching her still face, tracing the lines that had doubtless begun carving themselves during the siege. Maybe he could ask her after all. Someday.


End file.
